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‘A lasting gift’: USF’s Arts complex to break ground Thursday

Cathy Wentz
Published 5:19 p.m. MT March 23, 2014

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This is a conceptual drawing of what Iron County residents can expect to see when the new theatre for the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts is completed.
(Photo:
Courtesy of the Utah Shakespeare Festival
)

CEDAR CITY – The dreams of Utah Shakespeare Festival to have a state-of-the-art theatre and Southern Utah University to have a large art museum begin their march toward reality.

Ground will be broken Thursday afternoon for the long-awaited Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts complex.

R. Scott Phillips, executive director for the USF, expressed the importance of the new complex to the Iron County area.

“The new Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts will be a lasting gift to Cedar City and Southern Utah University,” Phillips said. “The woman whose name this center will bear was a lifelong advocate and supporter of the arts for all.”

The center, estimated to cost $30 million, is planned to include a new theatre with a retractable roof and studio theatre for the USF with an artistic and production building for the festival as well. Additionally, SUMA will provide the university with the needed space to exhibit, collect and preserve significant historical and contemporary artwork relating to the interior American west.

The center’s grounds will also become a work of art with sculpture gardens and other outdoor features.

Nikki Allen Koontz, media and public relations manager for the USF, said all parties involved are hoping that the construction for the million project can begin this summer.

“There’s a lot of site prep because there’s buildings that are in the space that have to come down; we have to close the road and we have to re-route power,” she said.

She also said a section of 200 West, east of the Randall L. Jones Theatre, will be closed off and the new theatre will be located in that area. The building being used as the costume shop, along with some apartments owned by the USF, will be torn down to provide space for the theatre. Then the old USF administrative offices will be demolished to make room for SUMA.

Koontz said everyone in the community is welcome to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony.

Follow Cathy Wentz on Twitter, @CathleenWentz

If You Go

•
What: Groundbreaking for the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts

•
When: Thursday, 3 p.m.

•
Where: On the grounds of the Randall L. Jones Theatre near the corner of University Blvd and 300 West.